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Surfers Make Berkeley's Site Number One |
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AnchorDesk Staff ZDNet AnchorDesk Friday, September 15, 2000 |
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I hope Chris skips going to grad school. If he goes, I'll have to share office space again with Contributing Editor Nicci Noteboom -- not the tidiest colleague around.
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by Jarvis MakNielsen//NetRatings As summer fades, students break out backpacks and dust off computers in preparation for another school year. For universities and colleges, the Internet serves as an information resource for prospective students, current students and alums. But it also houses student Web pages, recipe databases, map archives and a host of other non-academic topics. BERKELEY TOPS CLASS
Among university domains, berkeley.edu takes top honors for volume of monthly visitors, according to July data from Nielsen//NetRatings. But closer analysis reveals most of Berkeley's traffic actually goes to soar.berkeley.edu. The Searchable Online Archive of Recipes (SOAR) draws people looking for good casserole, seafood or poultry recipes; more than half its traffic came from people clicking a link from search results. MICHIGAN NO. 2
The University of Michigan domain (umich.edu) claims the No. 2 spot. But the largest chunk of traffic visited students' personal home pages -- not the university's front page. A university's Web site is now one of the primary faces for the school. Prospective students get a feel for the school's campus, faculty and surrounding area by clicking on its site. ONLINE ENTRANCE
One way these sites help is with the entrance process. Students sign up for the needed SATs through the Web, fill out applications and even submit them online. Nielsen//NetRatings data show that monthly visitor traffic picks up in October and November as students start the application process. Traffic wanes in the winter but picks up again in the spring, once acceptances have been mailed and it's time to make a final decision about the right school to attend. The bulk of visitors to college and university sites are under 25 years old and are exploring student life and the admissions process, whether it's for undergraduate or graduate programs. FUTURE: NET EVERYWHERE
What's the future hold? The Internet will become an everyday part of student life -- from class registration to submitting homework to checking final grades. For many schools, this is the norm. For others, it will be soon.
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